A computer virus has crippled a dispatch system at a triple 0 call centre, forcing ambulance operators to take down details of callers using pen and paper, which is a joke in 2011. The system was 10 years old and undoubtedly would be running Windows XP a release of Windows that is 10 years old and well past it’s replacement date and there was not even a back up system to take over in the case of the system being compromised by a piece of malicious code that most likely came from the Internet. Ambulances where backed up at hospitals because they were not being directed to the emergencies which could have cost lives. why would a critical computer system be running such a vulnerable operating system in the first place?
Could a more secure dedicated system be designed that only does the one task assigned to it and does not have 9000 attack vectors into the main operating system like Windows has? I can not understand the preponderance of Windows XP a whole decade after it’s release. It is a joke, it is always going down and getting viruses and is a good example of how not to design an operating system. Here is another example.